Education Forum Papers

ISNA Education Forums on the west coast and in Chicago are two important annual events for Muslim educators in North America for many years. They provide professional growth, high quality educational materials, pertinent training, networking opportunities and motivation for improvement. These forums gather together hundreds of teachers, administrators and board members of full-time Islamic schools to discuss and exchange ideas pertaining to the development of Islamic educational institutions in America.

The American Muslim cultural paradigm presents unique challenges. For Islamic schools in America the efforts to combine academic excellence with emphasis on Islamic morals have proved very fruitful. Having survived the initial challenges of galvanizing community support to establish a school, Islamic schools are now attempting to find the most effective means to build curriculum and programs that will strengthen the Islamic faith and academic excellence of their students. These schools continue to build on every level to enable their students to succeed in a competitive and increasingly multicultural and interdependent world. The ISNA Education Forum has striven to be a major platform for this critical endeavor from its inception in the year 2000.

Many scholarly presentations have been presented at the ISNA Education Forums in previous years. Some of these papers are being presented here for the benefit of Islamic school teachers, researchers, and students engaged in studying the phenomenon of Islam in America.

ISNA Education and Programs Development Department is committed to provide much needed services and support to Muslim educators and Islamic schools. May Allah SWT help and guide us in serving the true message of Islam – Ameen.